Daimler Acquires Bitcoin Friendly PayCash Europe

Financial services is a lucrative industry segment. With increasing interest in fintech and new-age payments systems, companies are trying to boost their existing portfolios through mergers and acquisitions. In one such instance, Daimler AG, the parent company of Mercedes-Benz, has taken over PayCash Europe.

According to an announcement in one of the automotive magazines, Daimler Financial Services AG will be introducing its own payment service called Mercedes Pay. The acquisition of PayCash Europe will help Daimler build upon the platform’s existing infrastructure.

PayCash Europe is one of the few payment processing services to support Bitcoin. In addition to Bitcoin, it also supports all leading credit and debit cards, Sofort, PayPal, AliPay, SEPA and more. The company’s services are being availed by a range of businesses including digital marketplaces, crowdfunding platforms, and e-commerce sites.

Daimler’s press release quotes one of the board members, Bodo Uebber saying,

“Mercedes Pay is a fundamental component of our mobility and digitization strategy. Daimler’s new payment system underscores our ambition, as a leading provider of digital mobility services, to make the products and services we offer even more appealing.”

Once Mercedes Pay is functional, it will provide a comfortable and secure channel for customers to pay for the company’s mobility offerings and services. Some of the supported offerings include its car sharing service – car2go, mytaxi taxi application and also its international financing service.

Even though PayCash Europe supports Bitcoin, it is unclear about whether Mercedes Pay will continue the trend or not. However, with the automobile industry inching towards autonomous and intelligent vehicles, Daimler could gradually shift its focus towards blockchain technology as well.

The future looks bright in the automotive sector at the moment. The rise of sharing economy, driven by the likes of Uber and Airbnb combined with a network of autonomous vehicles can benefit from the power of bitcoin and blockchain technology. Daimler may be heading in the right direction after all.

Ref: Automotive World | Image: NewsBTC